Some of the world's biggest tech companies are being targeted by an open letter about privacy.

Canada’s Privacy Commissioner has joined more than 20 counterparts from around the world in supporting an open letter addressed to a list of global tech giants: Samsung, Microsoft, Nokia, Google, Amazon, Apple, and BlackBerry.

The term, coined in 1999, has become ubiquitous with each passing day. Technologists collaborate together in an intense, short burst of creation to come up with a new innovation in less than a weekend.

Google is pressing to keep content from YouTube unregulated in Canada, which has created tension between the software giant and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, who has started a sweeping review of the television industry rules.

Tensions are rising in San Francisco, where a great divide has grown between the well-paid tech workers and those who suddenly can't afford to live in their own city (think protesters attempting to tip over Google buses that transport engineers from downtown to Silicon Valley). Are these so-called "culture wars" something that could happen to Vanouver as well?